I am still pondering the problem of scaling “agile” and whether it is a real thing or not. But this is my summary of where a coach will start …
Essentially, they will ask some questions like:
Then they might look at what is working and what is not, in pursuit of keeping your customers happy.
If you want to scale agile beyond one team you should probably use an agile coach to help you on your journey
But watch out – some have signed the agile for evil manifesto and might not be a good fit for where you and your team want to end up.
This is the manifesto I offered the team in our course … and some may have signed it. Others refused to sign and might be a better fit if you are hoping to work for the forces of good
I just looked it up in the dictionary: Agile is an adjective.
It means “able to move quickly and easily”.
Editors warning – sorry this article is a bit long, but I was in a rush so I didn’t have time to shorten it 🙂
I have found that agile practices work really well for a team, as long as you know the secret of agile (found here). You can also see some videos on how to do agile really well here.
But helping a whole organisation go agile is a little trickier.
Of course, once we see what happens when a single team get their agile mojo, it is natural that we start thinking about repeating their success on a larger scale.
Quite often we also observe that the thing holding the newly agile team back is the very thing that is supposed to support them – the organisation.
I was in two related conversations recently – what is the secret to being agile (mentioned here).and “how do you scale agile to work in big organisations”.
I will publish the secret to scaling agile soon, but I realised that there is one danger that you need to be aware of before you start to scale – heroes can be great for small teams but they don’t scale well.
Continue reading “If you want to scale agile – watch out for the heroes. They might bring you down”
